Issue 74/2007
Morphonotaktik im Erstspracherwerb im Deutschen
Eva Maria Freiberger
This paper deals with the question, whether German speaking children first acquire morphonotactic or phonotactic consonant clusters, and with the role of morpheme boundaries in clusters. If they first acquire morphonotactic consonant clusters, this would be an indication that even children during early phases of first language acquisition are able to segment morphologically and that they increasingly pay attention to morphological clusters, which generally contain more information than phonotatic clusters. Comparable evidence is shown in sociophonological studies of William Labov (1972).
The following analysis is based on the longitudinal study of an Austrian boy named Jan who was recorded in everyday interaction with his mother. His productions of consonant clusters are compatible with the hypothesis that morphonotactic clusters, despite their phonotactically marked character, pose no additional acquisitional problem. But there is, unfortunately, no positive evidence.
Polish morphonotactics in first language acquisition
Paulina Zydorowicz
In this report the author will try to show the interface between phonology and morphology on the basis of phonotactics or rather morphonotactics. Therefore, the main focus of the empirical study is the investigation of Polish consonant clusters with and without morphological boundaries. It is assumed that in languages a given number of clusters will arise at morpheme boundaries. Although these morphonotactic clusters are often marked, they will be produced/acquired by children more easily than lexical clusters. A morphological cluster is more likely to be retained in production as it serves a morphological function (a new semantic or grammatical meaning is conveyed).